How to Select the Right Digital Risk Protection Company

Selecting a Digital Risk Protection (DRP) provider begins with evaluating how well the vendor addresses prevalent threats such as phishing, brand impersonation, and account takeovers. Key capabilities include continuous monitoring, real-time alerting, and automated detection that integrates with your SOC and incident response workflows through documented playbooks.

Examine the vendor’s takedown capabilities, including legal processes and partnerships, with specific attention to cross-border requirements such as EU jurisdictional constraints and GDPR-compliant evidence handling. Request transparent metrics on mean and median time-to-detection and time-to-takedown, along with service-level commitments.

Assess integration depth with your existing tools (SIEM, SOAR, ticketing, threat intel platforms), data coverage (domains, social media, mobile apps, marketplaces, paste sites, and dark web sources), and enrichment quality (attribution, infrastructure linkages, and risk scoring). Review case studies or sample reports to verify signal-to-noise ratios, false-positive rates, and escalation criteria.

Evaluate operational maturity: analyst expertise, 24/7 support, triage processes, and escalation paths. Confirm legal and ethical frameworks for evidence collection, chain-of-custody practices, and compliance with relevant regulations. Validate the vendor’s approach to prioritization based on business impact, and ensure clear ownership models between the provider and your internal teams.

Finally, pilot the service with defined success criteria: coverage breadth, alert fidelity, response speed, takedown outcomes by channel and jurisdiction, and the effort required from your team. The distinction between high-quality protection and excessive noise becomes clear when comparing measurable outcomes, integration effectiveness, and the consistency of takedown execution.

Key Takeaways

• Validate continuous monitoring across open web, social networks, mobile app stores, and dark web sources. Require evidence of real-time alerting and independently documented detection accuracy, including false positive/negative rates.
• Evaluate security operations integration. Confirm bidirectional SIEM/SOAR connectivity, tested playbooks, standardized workflows, measurable metrics (e.g., mean time to detect/respond), and automation that demonstrably reduces response times.
• Require verifiable takedown performance data. Ask for median and 95th-percentile time-to-takedown by channel, service-level commitments with escalation tiers, and explanations for variance by platform type, content category, and jurisdiction.
• Check EU takedown competence. Verify cross-border legal compliance (e.g., eCommerce Directive/Digital Services Act implications), experience with impersonation and fraud cases, and transparent, auditable status reporting throughout the takedown process.
• Address executive-targeted phishing specifically. Request continuous monitoring for executive impersonation across email, domains, social media, and collaboration tools, along with evidence of rapid detection and remediation outcomes.

Understanding Phishing Surge Trends

Phishing attacks have increased significantly, raising the likelihood of compromise and financial loss. Recent data indicates a 70% rise in phishing activity, with more than 80% of organizations experiencing at least one phishing-related incident.

Phishing is a common vector for breaches, contributing to over 90% of data compromise events, and the average cost per incident is approximately $1.6 million. Executives and other high-profile employees are frequently targeted due to their access and influence, and adversaries are using more sophisticated social engineering tactics.

To track these trends and reduce risk, combine threat intelligence with Digital Risk Protection (DRP). This approach helps organizations:

• Identify and map digital risks across domains, brands, and executive personas.
• Gain visibility into external attack surfaces and impersonation attempts.
• Prioritize mitigation based on likelihood and impact, focusing on high-risk assets and individuals.
• Implement targeted defenses, such as takedowns of malicious domains, monitoring of executive impersonation, and strengthened email and identity controls.

Improved visibility and contextual intelligence support earlier detection of campaigns and more effective response, reducing exposure to evolving phishing threats.

Key Benefits: 24/7 Threat Visibility

Around-the-clock threat visibility reduces the window of opportunity for attackers and supports faster response. Continuous monitoring provides real-time detection across digital channels, triggering alerts before suspicious activity escalates into a breach.

Given that organizations face frequent attack attempts, this approach helps limit exposure and potential reputational impact.

Automated detection extends coverage to social platforms and dark web sources, operating without downtime and reducing gaps associated with manual monitoring.

Consistent, 24/7 visibility supports a stronger security posture by enabling earlier intervention, more informed decisions, and improved resilience as risks and tactics evolve.

SOC Integration Playbooks

SOC integration playbooks operationalize Digital Risk Protection (DRP) within existing security tools and processes. Effective playbooks define how DRP data integrates with SIEM, SOAR, and ticketing systems to maintain consistent threat detection, triage, and response.

Playbooks should specify end-to-end procedures for monitoring, analysis, and response, including data flows, trigger conditions, and action sequences. Bidirectional integration of threat intelligence enables enrichment in the SIEM and feedback from investigations to refine DRP detections.

Standardized workflows and clearly defined decision points reduce delay and variability in handling incidents. When evaluating vendors, verify how playbooks are versioned, tested, and updated to reflect new threats and organizational changes.

Assess role-based responsibilities, automated enrichment steps (e.g., WHOIS, passive DNS, malware sandboxing), escalation criteria, and rollback procedures for actions such as takedowns or blocking. Ensure auditing and metrics are built in to measure dwell time, mean time to detect, and mean time to respond.

Rehearsed, measurable, and auditable playbooks are necessary for reliable DRP outcomes.

EBRAND’s EU Takedown Expertise

EBRAND provides Digital Risk Protection with a focus on cross-jurisdiction EU takedown processes. The service combines continuous monitoring of digital platforms and automated detection to identify impersonation and fraudulent activity at an early stage.

Identified content is assessed and acted on through established takedown procedures to reduce the risk of reputational impact. The approach is supported by legal and compliance specialists familiar with EU regulations and platform policies, helping ensure that requests are properly substantiated and compliant.

Clients receive status updates and reports documenting actions taken and evidence collected. The underlying technology streamlines identification and evidence gathering, while expert-led execution helps conclude cases efficiently, aiming to protect brand assets without adding unnecessary operational burden.

Time-To-Takedown Metrics

Time-to-takedown is a key performance indicator for assessing how effectively a provider can remove high-risk content after detection.

Request empirical evidence, including median and 95th-percentile (p95) times from initial identification to confirmed removal across threat types such as phishing, brand impersonation, and malware. Data should be segmented by platform, jurisdiction, and remediation pathway (e.g., host takedown, registrar suspension, social platform removal) to allow like-for-like comparisons.

Prioritize Digital Risk Protection solutions that support workflow automation for evidence gathering, notification, and escalation, as these typically reduce takedown cycles from days to hours.

Confirm the presence of continuous monitoring and real-time alerting tied to predefined response playbooks.

Define tiered service-level targets, for example:

• Critical threats: target <24 hours to removal
• High severity: 24–48 hours
• Moderate severity: 2–5 days

Validate these targets against audited historical performance and sample case logs.

Examine variance drivers such as provider cooperation rates, regional legal requirements, and completeness of evidentiary packages.

Compare outcomes over time to reduce exposure windows and limit operational, reputational, and financial impact.